


ain’t it a fine life

by joisattempting



Category: Falsettos - Lapine/Finn
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Child Labour, F/F, F/M, Family Secrets, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, Idk what I’m doing, M/M, New York City, Protests, Rebellion, adam’s here too, anne-marie is back and done with her son’s bullshit, at all, dee has a brother, except most of them have different names because this is a historical setting baybee, i’ll add to the tags as we go, marvin has a baby sister!!, marvin’s dad runs said factory, marvin’s mom isn’t an asshole would you believe it, omg why is jason never in anything i write i’m so sorry, pls read this i’m so excited about it i’m just shit at tagging, plus The Siblings, there are so many ocs in this holy shit, to this day i still don’t know how to tag, uhhh whizzer & mendel & dee work in a factory, yeah i think i should tag that on everything i put on here at this point
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-28
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:47:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26703934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/joisattempting/pseuds/joisattempting
Summary: horse-drawn carriages, factories and strange yet oddly beautiful outfits? what the fricking frack has sammie got up her sleeve this time? a bloody historical au, that’s what. get in your time machines (or tardises, if you’re into that sort of thing) and buckle your seatbelts, because everybody’s favourite tight-knit family are taking a trip back in time to 1900.
Relationships: Dr. Charlotte/Cordelia (Falsettos), Trina/Mendel Weisenbachfeld, Whizzer Brown/Marvin
Comments: 7
Kudos: 11





	ain’t it a fine life

**Author's Note:**

> IT’S A THING IT’S FINALLY A THING
> 
> whew. okay. so. i’ve been excited about this for ages, and i’ve been thinking about working on it since the highschool au. so uhh welcome one, welcome all, to the most chaotic and half baked historical au on the face of the planet! once again, i profusely apologise to anyone i’ve pestered with ideas and whims about this series, but i hope the final product makes up for it? i’m not actually sure how this is going to work, because i’ve got a half a general outline, but not a detailed description of how each chapter is going to work, so you’ll have to bear with me while i figure this out as i go lmfao. as for updates, i can’t promise a frequent posting schedule, because of school and the format of this fic, because i’m going to attempt to write it in actual “chapters” and not separate oneshots, which will probably take me a tad longer to get done. nonetheless, i hope you enjoy whatever this is, i cannot contain my excitement for it. please please please let me know what you think!! i’m so fucking stoked!!!
> 
> before i go i’d like to thank uhhh newsies for being the sole reason i can sort of write new york accents, google, and my history classes on jack the ripper okay now i’ll go to sleep it’s midnight and i have class in the morning
> 
> till we meet again! <33
> 
> \- sammie :)
> 
> (hey you. yes you. go sign some petitions. right now.)
> 
> tw : graphic depictions/mentions of blood, injury, underage drinking and corporal punishment (please lmk if i missed anything!!)

The day began not dissimilarly to any and every other day of Whizzer Brown’s miserable, dreary life. But he was used to it by now, and had learned to expect nothing but disappointment from the minute he screwed open his hazel eyes and was formally greeted by the desperate, yet oddly ceremonious lament of the alarming amount of flushed, emaciated babies within the vicinity, that expressed the emotions of the entirety of the population residing within the crumbling, peeling walls of the dilapidated lodging house, precariously perched on a plot of uneven land situated in the thrumming heart of the New York slums; their frustration, their untameable anger towards the corrupt patriarchal society they had the misfortune of falling victim to. It wounded both their pride and standards of living in equal measures. But underneath the frothing and seething of the unanimous insubordinate natures of the lowly New Yorkers was something delicate, something fragile, something raw and real and distraught. A cry, a call, a fervent, uninhibited bellow for something, anything that could aid them in their futile attempt to keep their egotistical chins above the endless waters of poverty. Amongst the wail of the mentioned children were the hacking coughs of those wracked by scarlet fever, smallpox, typhus, influenza. The impudent squeak of mischiefs of grey rats minor and senile. The telltale whistle of malfunctioning kettles and elated yelps of half-naked, grimy children that had not yet allowed the gruesomeness of their world dull their blinding rays of positivity and hope, despite their bleeding hands and bruised bodies from whatever manual labour they’d been forced into since they proved proficient enough at toddling about the six square-foot room they shared with a varying amount of other families. The children that didn’t allow the thick cloud of despair to engulf them yet. Whizzer found that he liked them best, other than his own friends and family, of course. 

He counted his lucky stars every day that his parents were still present. It was a communal house joke, the surprising health of the Price-Brown family - both adults were young and relatively lusty, although father Adam’s leg wasn’t what it used to be and his cough had been playing up more frequently than was commonplace as of late. In addition to this, he and fiery, yet loving wife Anne-Marie had produced six children throughout the years out of fear that any would pass on at an early stage due to the unfortunate rampant infant mortality in the slums. But the universe appeared to side with them just this once, and the half-dozen, consisting of twins Bridget and Kevin, Victoria, Jack, Mary, and Whizzer (that wasn’t his given name, Andrew was, but a nickname that he’d forgotten the origin of due to the prolonged amount of time he’d been using it) bringing up the rear, were as healthy as one could be in such egregious conditions. Every day the family prayed, both before mealtimes when they could get them and as they went about their depressing daily lives, that their stroke of luck would never turn on them, and suddenly inflict overwhelming hardship on all eight members of the Mormon-Jewish family. Hardship that none possessed any desire whatsoever to ponder nor dwell upon. 

Whizzer awoke begrudgingly when his body could no longer slumber amidst the everyday cacophony of his shared room, rubbing uselessly at the stiffness in his neck that came with having nowhere to rest but the cold floor. His friend Cordelia Thompson, Dee for short, pulled a face at him from across the cramped room, and he grinned back mischievously, thumbing his nose at her like he would in their youth, which felt like centuries ago despite only being sixteen at present, but retracted his hand before his mother turned around and berated him for it, scowling darkly and branding him a “bad influence to all the young’uns” as Whizzer felt Dee’s laughing eyes scorch holes into his back as she giggled into her sorry breakfast. Underneath the sludge and grit that perpetually smothered her face like the most unappealing cake icing known to man, Dee was a pretty girl. Her twinkling, mischievous eyes were cerulean, a beguiling shade of blue that could enrapture anybody, and blonde curls fell past her shoulders in unkempt braids. A ghostly pale was her face - she liked to joke that it was teetering on the brink of transparent, and the features adorning it were small. Her figure closely resembled that of the streetlamps planted across the city. She had but one sibling, a bashful, quiet older brother whose sandy hair - that poked out with great temerity from beneath the worn brown newsboy’s cap he was never seen in absence of - matched their father’s almost exactly, and stood at a towering head and a bit taller than their small, stocky parents. His name was Phillip, or Pip affectionately by those he could call himself acquainted with, and he’d walked with a crutch for as long as Cordelia could remember. 

Tugging harshly at his broken shoelaces, he approached the general area of the room where most sat in a large circle spanning a substantial amount of the room and took their meals. According to the first few detectable slivers of orange light seeping through the grubby, unwashed window, Whizzer wagered that it was just after sunup, which meant they only could spare a few moments before they were forced to brave the streets and make the laborious trek to work. Work. How could he even begin to go about describing work? Well, akin to the vast majority that were stranded in the cavernous hole of poverty and void of any form of escape route, he spent fourteen hours a day, six days a week, stood behind a machine in a damp, bleak room, with the only source of natural light stabbing through the one miniscule window situated behind the overlooker’s desk at the front of the room, a great slab of varnished wood that loomed over them with a certain poised superiority, scrutinising the impoverished workers as though threatening to crush them underneath its weight, should it catch them slacking for even a millisecond. It was a shoe factory, owned and overseen by the formidable Oscar William Feldman, a comfortable gentleman of the New York countryside, who wore velvets and tweeds to the factory and hung an enticing watch and chain from his pockets, as though mocking his workers’ measly cottons and linens. He smoked a pipe as he sat behind the desk, rifling through that morning’s paper with the occasional noise or tut of disapproval, the tobacco smoke billowing out into the room like a singular drop of ink in water, perpetuating coughs from those who didn’t already smoke outside of the workplace. Whizzer was certain that every employee at the place had the same thought concerning said watch and chain, but only one - a plucky little boy with prominent ears that was known to the others as, well, Ears, had thought to execute it, digging his clumsy fingers into old Feldman’s pocket when his mind was elsewhere. He didn’t recall very much of what happened next, but tried his hardest to forget what he did. One thing he was certain of, however, was that they never saw boisterous and brash Ears at the factory from the next day forth. Whizzer wished he’d found out his proper name. 

His sister Mary offered him a half-smile in greeting, budging up slightly so he could wedge himself inside the circle between her and Dee. Mary was a year senior to him, and ensured that this little fact never strayed from his mind. Nevertheless, the pair had always been partners in crime, ever since he was old enough to be dragged around the city by her, with an exasperated sibling or parent in tow to ensure they weren’t jumped, kidnapped, pickpocketed (not that the Price-Browns possessed anything of value, but there was no method of predicting what was to come as soon as one took the first tentative, apprehensive step over the threshold of the comfort of one’s own home, allowing themselves to be enveloped by the melting pot of crime and shouting and people that was the Lower East Side), or anything else of that variant. There were two things she always, always, always carried in the pocket of her ragged and patched burgundy pinafore; a slingshot gifted to her by a friend at the cotton mill, and the opulent silk handkerchief she’d obtained from the first and only time she’d picked someone’s pocket (after a particularly jarring scolding from Adam, she’d never had the guts to do it again). She always ensured to keep it concealed from view in her pocket, because she knew that the thumbs of other street thieves would begin to itch at the sight of such an object. Her mousey, flat hair was chopped at her jawline, and the good-natured sparkle in her brown eyes hadn’t faded yet. 

“Mornin’, little brother,” she quipped, the same as every morning, bumping shoulders with him as he stretched his lanky legs out on the floor in front of him. Kevin doled out whatever chipped pewter bowls and plates they could find lying idly around the room they called their home, exchanging sorrowful glances with those who would be going without that day. The other Price-Brown siblings had always called their brother a tight-laced lickspittle, his twin sister more so than anybody else, but Anne-Marie was quick to insist that he was an honest kid, and that the remaining five should take example from him. 

“I ain’t your little brother,” Whizzer jeered back, the same as every morning. 

“Yes y’are, you’re a whole year younger’n me. You’re a baby. Baby Andy,” she dotingly pinched his soot-covered cheeks like a grandmother would their grandchild, drawing a ripple of laughs from around the ragtag circle of men, women, and children. His face scrunched in irritation, Whizzer slapped Mary’s arms away, scowling and kicking at a rat when it sunk its teeth into the toe of his boot. 

“Buzz off!” he cursed at it, wriggling his foot free and glaring as the rodent scampered fearfully away. “These piece of shit boots are broken enough without’cha chewin’ at ‘em!” 

“Someone’s in a nark this morning,” Jack wheedled, raising his eyebrows as Anne-Marie tossed him a hunk of bread and a disapproving glance. He was a weedy boy of nineteen, with a greasy umber mop that just about licked the tip of his crooked collar. It was a subject of mixed reception within the Price-Brown family, Jack’s subtle waves; his father kicked up a great fuss over its length at any given moment, appropriate or otherwise (“As if you can’t get any more slovenly, Jack Christopher,”) and Victoria had attempted, on more occasions than she’d perhaps care to admit, to shear it off with the sharpest object she could locate while her little brother dozed noisily in the lodging house’s swarming midnight darkness. Meanwhile, Bridget, Mary, and Whizzer had warmed up to it relatively quickly, and had expressed their deep melancholy for if they were to be snipped off. 

“Buzz off yourself,” Victoria took the opportunity to grumble, eyes half-shut as she toyed with the simple embroidery on her soiled apron that had once been an alluring ivory, but regressed over time into an off-putting shade of murky grey. “The blessed thing’s as poor as Job’s turkey. It wants breakfast jus’ as much as you do,”

Whizzer flicked his cap from his eyes, his sour mood only intensifying. “Quit gripin’, you crank,” he mumbled under his breath, praying to anyone that would listen that nobody heard his personal musings. 

“Who’re you callin’ a crank? Say that again, and you’ll be in for a knuckle fuckin’ sandwich!” the girl flared, and it was all Adam could do to keep her from clawing at her little brother, who, subsequent to overcoming his initial terror, snickered behind his hand at her irate expression, pushing his cap low over his face so as to shield his mirth as his shoulders shook.

Turning to face him, Anne-Marie sighed in exasperation, tucking an errant curl behind her ears, pink with frustration. “There’ll be no more of that, Andrew, you hear me? And if I hear you terrorisin’ your sisters once more, you’ll be goin’ down the factory on an empty belly,”

At this, Whizzer sobered considerably, ducking his head in shame and humiliation as the tinkling, carefree laughter reverberating around the slapdash circle quieted to an uncomfortable silence. “Awful sorry, Mama,”

The woman’s expression softened. “That’s alright, dearie. You take this,” she smiled, tossing him a slab of bread with dripping scraped haphazardly over the top. She’d never willingly send her children off to work with their stomachs void of sustenance of some form, but she did like to ensure each of them were toeing the line. 

“That all?” 

“What d’you mean, ‘that all’, you pig?” Dee laughed, nudging him as picked at a peculiar speck of mould decorating the stale crust of her bread. In spite of their unfortunate state of living, her friend’s appetite put those of all the lions in the zoo collectively to shame, which fascinated Cordelia immensely, securing the very first spot on the girl’s mental list of favourite topics of conversation. “We’ve hardly got enough t’feed everyone here. There ain’t room for seconds,” 

“Hey, where’s Pip?” Mary asked, tapping the former on the shoulder. “Ain’t he joinin’ us for our grand Tuesday feast?”

“Nah,” Dee shook her head forlornly. Her brother was hardly seen at the breakfast circle, and the girl hadn’t the time to visit his selling spot. “He’s been out since before sunup to make morning bell. We only really see him on Sundays or after work. ‘S sad, really. I miss him sometimes,”

‘It’s a dreadful business, being one of them paperboys,” Adam said, his gruff voice muffled by the bread in his mouth. “Waking up before the wretched sun. I hope the headline’s good to him,”

Dee smiled. “Thank’ee, sir. I’ll tell him ya’ said so,” 

Following the exchange pertaining to the whereabouts of Cordelia’s brother, conversation gradually dipped into a peaceful lull of murmured words and whispered anecdotes, and Whizzer found himself scrubbing at his weary eyes with vigour as he chewed sleepily on the tough bread, fragments of words and sentences washing over his head like a crashing tsunami. He rather enjoyed the tranquility of the morning, when the city had not yet woken and the streets were vacant of the dull trundle of carriages along the cracked cobbles or the stampeding herds of pompous wealthy folk, clad in their garish coats and bright cravats that provided some source of entertainment to the lowly people of the street that hustled by, that spat at urchins and clutched their purses and briefcases in petrified horror. Although, in all honesty, it was infrequent that Whizzer ever caught the city he’d lived in since birth at its prime due to his long hours holed up in a bleak, dim room, with nothing but the deafening noise of machinery for consolation and company. Even if anyone so much as offered him a fleeting hello, the crunches and whistles and thunks would undoubtedly drone them out. 

Shortly afterward, the majority of the breakfast circle bade farewell to loved ones and disbanded, descending the rotting stairs with the creaky, moulding planks. Whizzer loitered behind as his family parted ways - his mother and sisters to the cotton mill or the laundry, and his father and brothers in pursuit of the coal mine, or Feldman’s factory along with him. He leaned with prudence against the precarious doorjamb, sticking his thumbs behind the blue suspenders handed down to him from Jack years ago. Dee dusted off her hands and wiped any residue or debris that remained on her hands carelessly onto the squalid grey apron knotted tightly around her thin waist. Whizzer vividly recalled her thirteenth birthday, when her mother had gifted her with said apron and a singular slice of apple pie to celebrate the milestone in the girl’s life. He remembered the cheerful song that filled the candlelit room that night, and the makeshift games and short plays crafted by every child and adolescent were enough to keep the adults and Cordelia in high spirits for the rest of the night. He could never seem to master the complex art that was stifling the stupid grin that worked its way across his usually-somber face when he thought of that day. 

The pair thundered down the decaying steps together, the blonde instigating their everyday conversation as to how in the world they hadn’t collapsed beneath their feet yet. All who resided at Brass Gardens Lodging House was well aware of the pair’s morbid joke, and some were even in on it - Bridget kept a tally tacked to the wall of how many days had gone by without a portion of the staircase, or any aspect of the house’s architecture for that matter, giving way. Whizzer had never understood the definition behind its name; there were no gardens to speak of within a ten mile radius. 

“There y’are! Only took ya’ half a century to get your asses down here,” were the hailing words of Mendel Joseph Weisenbachfeld, a slight and small boy whose most prominent feature was the tangled ebony mess growing like an unkempt bush atop his head, squashed into subservience by the comically-large cap he wore, the brim of which shielded his bespectacled eyes from view. He was a dear friend of Whizzer and Dee alike, and had been assigned the perilous occupation of crawling under and over the whirring, clunky machinery to attend to broken parts, usually distributed to the naive, bright-eyed younger boys and girls that were only just starting out in Feldman’s horrid business and knew no better, for far longer than was considered conventional, only aging out of it a mere year ago. Wrapped taut around his hand was a sickening, dun-coloured handkerchief, concealing a bloody gash that had never properly healed and was most likely infected, spanning the longitude of the front of his hand. All three of them shuddered at the memory of how he’d obtained it. Factory accidents occurred nearly every day, that much was obvious, but their frequency deemed them no less macabre, and the threesome of teenagers most certainly no more accustomed to them. The ebony-haired boy’s piercing howls of raw pain, the incessant clatter of the machine despite the intrusion, Dee’s pleading yelps directed towards anyone who would lend an ear to just  _ turn the godforsaken thing off _ , the unspeakable words of merciless reprimand spewing from Feldman’s foul mouth as he tugged on the boy’s arm, were enough to leave Whizzer’s lanky frame shaking uncontrollably with pained sobs as the traumatising events replayed in his mind, for numerous nights to follow. 

“Sorry, ‘Del. Breakfast,” Whizzer said, playfully pushing the other boy’s bottle-green cap over his eyes as the group started down the frosted road to work. The first few revelatory signs of winter were beginning to appear, which spelled nothing but trouble for the impoverished. It was the time of failed harvests in the countryside, meaning bread (among other essentials) of higher cost, or none at all. It was the time of winter chills and common illnesses, that sounded like a mild inconvenience if perceived from the rose-tinted perspective of a wealthy, upstanding member of society, but quite the contrary in the scandalised eyes of the working-class, who already battled a variety of other diseases when the weather was warm, and did not require another to further burden them, thank you very much. It was the time of lengthier hours bent over with one’s head down at the factory, mass producing goods at a frivolous pace in order to have them gleaming proudly behind storefronts by the next day. In short, winter was the time of additional hardship and strife, and neither Whizzer nor his friends and family cared very much for it, save for Christmas and Hanukkah and other holidays they were too poor to engage in festivities for. 

Mendel scoffed, swinging on a lamppost adorned with spiked icicles and sliding his round-rimmed, broken spectacles further up his nose as he did so. “And what might that be, Lord Brown and Lady Thompson of Brass Gardens Lodging House? Croissants, imported from the great city of Paris itself all the way to dusty ol’ New York?” he said mockingly, in the most accurate elegant English accent he could muster, which, admittedly, was not very accurate at all. Cordelia rolled her eyes affectionately, crossing her arms partly in false irritation, but also due to the bitter weather. Kicking him lightly in the shins, Whizzer snorted. “Devilled eggs, mayhaps? Shat out the asshole of Queen Victoria’s chicken?”

“Oh, only the grandest meal one could ever dream of,” the girl played along, her skirts billowing out as she twirled in the street. “Do tell Marquess Weisenbachfeld, Lord Brown,”

“Shit, I’m a Marquess now?” Mendel exclaimed, shoving his hands in his pockets and grinning as he strolled past swarms of people pushing and shoving past one another in order to research wherever their destinations were. 

“Well, ain’t we hoity-toity?” the taller of the boys raised his eyebrows, digging the former in the alarmingly-prominent ribs. Mendel doubled back, barrelling into a bothered businessman that sighed exasperatedly at the solid gold watch in his hand. He dangled him briefly by the scruff, and informed him that the police, if you could call them that, would be at his doorstep should he commit such a heinous crime towards a respectable gent like him ever again. 

“Noted, sir. ‘M sorry. Might’cha put me down now? Only, I’ve got a job t’get to, an’ the boss’ll have my guts for garters if I’m later’n I already am. There wouldn’t be no point in callin’ the coppers on me then, would there, sir? But dont’cha worry about missin’ me, pal, I’ll personally invite you to my hangin’,” the boy rambled, offering the red faced man a hopeful smile before being dropped in an unceremonious heap atop the cobbles. 

“I don’t believe you!” Cordelia giggled, the looming factory coming into view. “Ain’t your ma’ told you about mouthin’ off to posh folk before?” 

“Don’t sweat it, Dee,” Whizzer grinned devilishly, wrenching open the hefty factory door, sneaking one final glance at the outside world before fourteen hours of misery. “What Estelle don’t know ain’t gonna hurt her,”

Oscar William Feldman was particularly cantankerous that morning, grunting and shaking his head at the newspaper so often that his son wondered how his head hadn’t screwed right off his neck. He wasn’t in classes today, under his father’s orders; sometimes he’d be dragged unwillingly to the shoe factory to oversee matters and ensure that he understood exactly how the place was managed, so he could take over when he grew up. He watched as three familiar faces lolled inside, his expression a queer mixture of disinterest and sympathy while the gaggle’s jolly smiles were wiped clean off their faces as they narrowly avoided an unwelcome bout of corporal punishment - his father’s preferred method of instilling discipline into his employees, regardless of age. Rubbing at his arms in a futile attempt to block out the cold, the boy offered them a shy half-smile as they scurried over to their positions, only to receive a disgusted glance in return. His heart sank as he continued to survey the people working diligently at fashioning shoes in time for the Christmas rush, at the soot-covered boys and girls crawling around above and underneath them to tend to any abnormalities with the mechanisms. They all appeared to be friendly with one another, cracking jokes and anecdotes when his father’s back was turned. He’d been instructed to inform him when these occurrences came about, but the boy never had the heart to rat out a pauperised labourer that probably didn’t know where their next meal was coming from, and thus most certainly did not need nor want their paltry pay docked. Furthermore, Oscar Feldman’s son was a lonely boy - all the children surrounding him at school were concerned about nothing but their carriages and horses and servants and bonnets, excitedly chattering with one another about topics that he felt as though he was required to relate to, but didn’t in the slightest. Just because he was rich, that in no way meant that he was happy. And what he’d do for a friendship even just a little bit like the one those three kids had. The trouble is, every worker at the place thought he was but a miniature copy of his father, and Marvin Alexander was nothing of the sort. 

Frowning, Mendel took his place beside Whizzer, hurriedly stuffing any excess handkerchief into the space between his withered hand and the tight, near-impenetrable knot, so as to not run the risk of snagging it on a hook or trapping it underneath one of the innumerable moving parts that his hands should by no means be within close proximity of in an ideal world where he didn’t return to his ailing family in the dead of night with grotesque crimson raindrops dribbling like the spit of an infant down his bruised temple and skinned fingers and limbs so splattered with bruises from the slender mahogany cane with the brass handle that leaned menacingly against the side of the desk, that they dangled, limp and apathetic, by his sides. He’d been subject to the abuse of Feldman’s cane for years, all of them had. And yet its lashes, emaciated wolves that snapped at his arms and legs and torso and the vulnerable head underneath his black tufts, never grew any more bearable. Following the most excruciating of these instances, Mendel could hardly stand, let alone limp back to the vibrating machines, lying stiff as a board on the factory floor underneath them with his arms outstretched, gears turning and grinding with potent urgency above his head. The cane still remained in its usual position, the polished brass glowering with a sinister sense of intimidation. “What’s his damage?” he said, tipping his head in the general direction of the teenage boy behind the desk, who seemed to have abandoned the large, leatherbound book he’d been instructed to write numbers and statistics in, and had taken to gazing at the trio. 

“Beats me,” Whizzer responded over the shouting and whirring. “He’s a real creeper, that one,”

Cordelia tossed her blonde braids over her shoulders, blowing stubborn wisps of stray hair from her eyes. She’d never much cared for her lengthy tresses, and neither did Feldman, and he liked to be unequivocal that she was aware of his opinions, once threatening to shear it all off in front of all the other workers. “But’cha can’t help but feel sorry for the guy sometimes. I mean, when’s the last time anyone paid him any mind, or even asked him his name?” 

“Sorry for him? You’re too nice, Dee, there ain’t no need to feel bad. He’s got everything he could fuckin’ ask for. ‘S too bad all that money couldn’t go towards someone who deserved it,” Whizzer laughed humourlessly, hissing when his finger drew blood. 

“Ya never know, Whiz, he could be nothin’ like old Feldman,”

“The apple never falls far from the tree, I s’pose. And Feldman’s a pretty big tree, in every sense,”

Mendel snorted, nearly jamming his injured hand underneath one of the moving parts in his mirth. “Hey, shut it! You’ll get us a beatin’, you stupe !”

It was at that fateful moment that Whizzer felt a chill wriggle down his spine, and it was like every ounce of blood in his body had frozen over into impenetrable ice. Something, someone, touched him gingerly on the shoulder, with an ever-so-slight, dare he say mocking pressure as two fingers, clean and manicured save for the few papercuts marching indignantly up the sides that came of scouring the newspaper for hours on end. Gulping with trepidation, Whizzer resisted the urge to allow a curse word to slip from his lips. 

“Andrew… Brown, is it?” came Feldman’s voice, resonant and dripping with a sickly-sweet trenchance. 

“Yes,” Whizzer squeaked, loathing how his voice cracked in his fear. He despised how much perturbation he felt towards this man. How much he  _ had  _ to feel. 

“Yes…?”

“Sir. Yes, sir,” he sighed. 

The man’s fingers moved quickly from his shaking shoulder to the scruff of his neck, pulling harshly at the back of his collar. “Come with me,”

“If you’re punishin’ me for somethin’ I said, I swear I didn’t mean nothin’ by it-”

“Are you deaf as well as stupid, boy? I said, and I will not ask you again, come with me,”

Cordelia kicked him, the grave solemnity looking incongruous on the face that was always so cheerful. “Just go, Whiz. You’re makin’ it worse,”

“Keep your mouth shut, Thompson, or you’ll be next in line,”

She didn’t need telling twice, keeping her head down and focusing every ounce of her attention to the half-completed boot in her hand. 

“That won’t be necessary, Father,” Don’t ask him how, but Marvin had somehow, by defying all laws of science and common sense, materialised at his father’s elbow, laughing apprehensively as he pried his fingers from the boy’s neck. 

“Quite the contrary, Marvin my boy, or else these scum won’t learn their place. There’s simply no room for a soft heart when it comes to overseeing a factory,” Mr Feldman said disapprovingly, in that patronising manner that his son detested above all. 

Marvin’s fingers tickled with mischief as a plan concocted itself in his brain. It certainly wasn’t foolproof, but he was more than willing to give it a shot nevertheless. Maybe it could plant the seed of friendship between them, that would blossom and grow into something beautiful. “I only said so because… because I’d like to try it myself,”

It was then that the rounded face of Oscar Feldman split into the most gleeful grin that any of the teenagers had ever seen. At his permittance, his son tentatively took up the cane by the desk, eyeing the scuffs and scratch marks inching their way up from the bottom that originated from the passionate, painful lashes administered to any who didn’t toe the line, with abhorrence and disgust, and not a glimmering greed or sick pleasure like Whizzer had expected. He slunk behind him, confusedly watching as Marvin located a large ring of keys and unlocked the door to the small antechamber that his father customarily left locked. 

“Surely you’d rather do it by the desk in front of the others? As an example?” he furrowed his brows in suspicion, sauntering back to his place of honour behind the desk. 

“No,” Marvin replied, clear and firm. He was surprised by his own tone of voice, resisting the urge to grin with satisfaction. “They may be factory workers, Father, but they deserve at least a shred of dignity,”

And with that, he shut the door to the antechamber behind them. 

Now alone with the Feldman boy, Whizzer seized the opportunity to scrutinise him in full, now that the enveloping noise of machinery was no longer there to disturb his mental musings. The boy was shorter than he was (but then again, many were), with watery blue eyes hidden behind round-rimmed spectacles, not dissimilar to Mendel’s, except of a higher quality and had most likely not been broken countless on countless occasions. His hair was auburn, and more cropped at the back of his head, but lengthened some towards the front in a questionable, yet oddly fitting style that rendered Whizzer rather self-conscious of his own subtle chestnut waves that grew neither straight nor in appeasing curls, but rather in a rumpled, dishevelled mess all over his head. His tailcoat was of an autumnal brown hue, paired with a juniper waistcoat and white shirt with lace sleeves to go underneath. He stared disdainfully at his linen stand-collar shirt, that was the exact colour of the other boy’s eyes, and began unfastening the buttons. 

“Woah, woah, what are you doing?” Marvin’s eyebrows shot up to his hairline, scandalised. 

Whizzer almost laughed. “Takin’ my shirt off so’s you can beat me senseless?” 

“I’m not actually going to cane you, you know,”

“Aint’cha?”

It was Marvin’s turn to chuckle. He shook his head vehemently, the longer strands of hair wagging like an exhilarated dog’s tail. “Of course not. It’s barbaric, and hardly achieves anything. I’ve found that conversation is the most optimal method of resolving conflict,”

Whizzer sneered as his dexterous, scabbed fingers fumbled with the buttons on his shirt and waistcoat, accompanying the motion with a laugh that was void of any genuine humour. “I don’t want your pity, rich boy,”

The other boy blinked. He felt his heart sinking as the taller of the pair leaned against the wall, careful not to knock the aged painting of some palace in some country off its rusted hook. “I’m sorry?”

“Listen, thank’ee for savin’ my hide from your dad and all, but I know y’think you’ve gotta be all understandin’ and like ya think you know what my life’s like just because I ain’t like you. But just so it sticks with ya, you ain’t a phi-phi-”

“Philanthropist?” Marvin offered, and flinched when Whizzer screamed even louder at him. He should’ve seen it coming - he may be sheltered and more than a little bit lonely, but he’d had plenty of practice deciphering social cues at the lavish, affluent balls his parents continuously dragged him to, despite his whines and shouts of protest that he’d rather remain cooped up in his room with his books, or steal away to the attic and peer up at the stars through his father’s old, dusty telescope. Now wasn’t the time to correct him on his sub-par grasp of the English language. 

“Just stay away from my friends and me. If your pa hits us, he hits us. Don’t think for a second that we’ll follow you around because you got us out of trouble once. ‘Cause we won’t. Believe me, I’ve had enough experience with folks like you who turn their noses up and don’t give us the time of day ‘cause I ain’t got a pocket watch and there’s a smidge of soot on my faces. You stick with your crowd, and I’ll do the same. Just… just fuck off, alright?”

Tangible tension thrummed between them as Marvin stared, wordless, at anywhere but the boy’s steely, flushed face. His vision blurred, Whizzer’s lanky figure distorting into a fuzzy image of dull colours as tears filled his eyes. He didn’t dare blink, out of fear they’d stream down his cheeks and present Whizzer with all the more reason to poke fun at him.

“.... Make sure you fake a limp when you go back in there,” was all he said, and hoped he didn’t sound as choked up as he felt. 

Whizzer didn’t disobey. 

Not many delis or grocers’ were open by the time the factory doors opened again, and grubby oceans of weary people filed out and spread out in the cold streets like butter on toast into the twilight, the stars winking suggestively down at them from up above. Sometimes Cordelia and Whizzer peered out the window all night, whispering conspiratorially as the other residents snoozed off the pain and fatigue that came with each day. They’d look out for Mendel, who waved enthusiastically from the window of his own lodging house somewhere across the road, and be accompanied by a handful of other young faces during some of these affairs. Tonight, however, was not one of those nights. Whizzer’s head was still swimming after the peculiar events of that day, and thus Dee suggested they pay a visit to Jerome, a humble clerk who ran the ramshackle general store a few blocks down from the factory. Sometimes he’d supply them with alcohol, provided it didn’t manifest into a habit, and feed them whatever foodstuffs he’d been unable to sell throughout the day. Mousey-haired and klutzy, he was also one of the very few people with permission to call Whizzer by his given name, or childhood nickname before the establishment of his current one. 

“Why, Andy, you’re looking grumpier than my old gaffer,” he remarked as the threesome sat on his countertop and swung their legs as he bustled about, reheating a crockpot of broth over the fire and pulling out chipped bowls and spoons he saved especially for them. “Something the matter?” 

“Thanks,” Whizzer managed a half-smile as he accepted the bowl and clumsily spooned the broth into his mouth at a rate that probably burned his tongue, spilling some down his front and wincing as the hot liquid seeped through his shirt and touched his skin. “I dunno. Feldman’s son tried t’get chummy with me today,”

“Oh, come off it, why dont’cha? If it weren’t for him, you’d hardly be walkin’ now, and Anne would’ve yapped your ear off about behavin’ yourself at work again,” Dee chirped around her bread, and her logic irritated the boy in a way that he couldn’t explain. 

“Gosh, yeah,” Mendel supplied, most unhelpfully. “Count yourself lucky on that one,”

He supposed she was right, though, and did not enjoy thinking about what sort of lecture he’d receive upon his return to Brass Gardens if his mother caught sight of his limp, or the bruises beginning to form on his arms, or the blood trickling through his shirt. 

It’d be alright. After all, the exchange was only a one-off. Marvin would probably forget what happened by the next day. 

“Whatever,” he sighed, holding out his bowl in front of him. “You got any more?”

  
  
  


  
  
  
  



End file.
